The ups and downs of LUFC: Loftus & Speight protest, Parker & Somma

Turning our backs on football

Just a quick heads up to anyone else heading to Yeovil about a planned protest to show our united disgust at the lack of justice served to those responsible in the deaths of Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight.

The protest will see all the travelling Leeds United fans turn their backs on football for one minute after the whistle blows for kick-off. The protest is a fitting way to show our disgust at how not only the Turkish courts, but UEFA and FIFA have failed in this matter.

What still makes me bitter to this day is how Turkish “fans” are allowed to go unpunished for the mindless acts of terror they inflict on any visiting team. If such events took place in England, I have no doubts whatever team was involved, would be banned from the competition as punishment. As someone in attendance for that game, I can’t even begin to describe how hostile the fans and Police were to the visiting Leeds United fans. The club should have been banned from European football indefinitely.

Ben Parker’s hopes washed away

The longest anticipated injury comeback in the history of sport (slight exaggeration maybe)continues as Ben Parker’s planned Tuesday night outing for the reserves was thwarted by torrential rain.

It seems that fate is against our young full-back and whether he’ll feature in the managers plans at all for the rest of this season seems questionable. In his absence, the left-back spot has been a really troublesome area for Larry with Hughes occupying it for the majority of the season.

Somma continues to reign at Lincoln

Four goals, two assists and only five games in to his Lincoln loan spell, but those kind of stats guarantee you a place on the League Two player of the month shortlist. Good to see Davide drawing the plaudits and we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that his form can continue and carry over into next season for Leeds United.

5 Responses

Well done in advance to everyone going to Yeovil & turning their back. I would never visit that country after what happened & i have boycotted all products made there for the last 10 years. I know it’s not much but it gives me piece of mind. I wasn’t there but i’ll never forget it being the headline on news at 10 & my wife looked at me & told me i’d ‘gone white as a sheet’. I’ve seen ideas being tossed around for anti Bates protests & my personal feeling is that a, the timing’s probably not good & b, fans are pretty divided on it. But one thing which every fan of our great club agrees on is that these 2 lads & their families & to a lesser extent us the fans have been treated disgracefully by UEFA, FIFA & Turkish & UK authorities.We must make sure these lads are never forgotten, & Uefa & FIFA should hang their heads in shame. Great piece as usual TSS & thanks for highlighting it. M.O.T

Totally agree it’s an utter disgrace that justice has not been done here.

The British Government should have put pressure on the Turkish Authorities to bring this to a close for what were, not just Leeds United fans, but British subjects. If this had happened in reverse this country would have been bending over backwards to please; after all it’s not that justice has to be done it has to be seen to be done, that’s the point.

Please, in the interest of fairness, can we not forget the Besiktas fans who threw bunches of flowers into the family stand when they visited Elland Road six months after the Galatasary mess?

I feel that gets ignored far too much, and it showed me that real Turkish fans feel ashamed of their compatriots.

Saying that, if we ever draw ‘that lot’ in anything again (unlikely as UEFA would probably just rig the draw to avoid it), I hope someone ‘does an Eduardo’ on Harry Kewell…if he had any feeling at all left for Leeds, he’d have told Galatasary where they could stick their contract offer. Short memory from the player who almost jumped into the crowd to hug the leeds fans who went to their stadium.